美式足球明星狄爾曼在阿富汗前線陣亡

美式足球明星狄爾曼在阿富汗前線陣亡




（中央社記者褚盧生洛杉磯二十三日專電）「九一一事件」後毅然放棄百萬年薪、從軍報國的美式足球明星派特．狄爾曼（Pat Tillman），今天傳出在阿富汗東南部陣亡的不幸消息。狄爾曼年僅二十七歲，身後遺下
結婚才兩年的妻子。


白宮今天下午對狄爾曼的殉職，特別發表悼詞，表達深沈的哀痛，並緬懷他不論在足球場或是疆場，都是令人欽佩的典範。

來自阿富汗美軍總部的消息說，狄爾曼所屬的陸軍巡邏隊昨晚在鄰近巴基斯坦邊界執行任務時遭到敵軍伏擊，狄爾曼當場陣亡。

狄爾曼於一九九八年加入職業美式足球紅雀隊，在「九一一事件」發生後的次年五月毅然放棄三年三百六十萬美元的優渥合約，誌願從軍報國。

紅雀隊今天已準備在狄爾曼的遺體運返亞利桑那州後，立即為他舉行告別式。享年二十七歲的狄爾曼，身後遺下結婚才剛滿兩年的妻子。

The Pat Tillman (little) effect

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By Greg Garber
ESPN.com


Editor's Note: This column was originally posted on April 17, 2003.

While Pat Tillman's former Arizona Cardinals teammates sweat and grimace their way through an off-season conditioning program -- a heavy rotation of weight lifting and aerobic exercises -- Tillman faces the prospect of the ultimate sacrifice.


A soldier from the 75th Ranger Regiment, possibly Pat Tillman, forges the way for U.S. ground troops to follow in southern Iraq.

A member of the elite Army Rangers, Tillman presumably is on the ground somewhere in the splintered country of Iraq. Deployed in early March along with the rest of the 75th Ranger Regiment, he and his comrades are working to liberate Iraq from the grip of Saddam Hussein's regime.

Tillman, at 26 years old, left a three-year, $3.6 million contract on the table to enlist in the Army with his brother Kevin after the 2001 season. Tillman will make no more than $17,000 this year. He is believed to be the first NFL regular to leave the game for military service since World War II, when 1,000 players served and 23 were killed.

Tillman's commitment has inspired shock and, quite frankly, awe.

"It touches you pretty deep," Cardinals head coach Dave McGinnis said at the recent NFL meetings. "Pat Tillman is a guy that is full of fiber, full of fabric, everything that he does goes right to the core of what is good and sound in our country."

John McCain, the U.S. Senator from Arizona who was a prisoner of war for more than five years in Vietnam, lauded Tillman as "the quintessential definition of a patriot."

The Rangers are the Army's finest light infantry unit, whose standard weaponry are machine guns, mortars and grenade launchers. It was the Rangers who conducted a daylight raid in Somalia, an event upon which Ridley Scott based his 2001 film, "Black Hawk Down."

"They strike quickly, with great precision and lethality," said Carol Darby, the news media chief for the Army Special Operations command at North Carolina's Fort Bragg. "They break things open so other people can come in behind them."

After Tillman made his ground-breaking decision to serve his country in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, some wondered if others in the athletic arena -- in many minds, a parallel universe to the crucible of war -- would come in behind him.

And while there has been an outpouring of support for the U.S. troops from athletes in all sports, no other high-profile professional athlete has followed Tillman's selfless example. In fact, former Cardinals teammate Simeon Rice, now a member of the Super Bowl champion-Tampa Bay Buccaneers, disparaged Tillman in an interview on Jim Rome's radio show last month.


Pat Tillman has been alone among today's professional athletes at the highest level, giving up his career to serve his country.
"He really wasn't that good, not really," Rice said. "He was good enough to play in Arizona, [but] that's just like the XFL."

After several more promptings from Rome, Rice allowed, "I think it's very admirable, actually. You've got to give kudos to a guy like that because he did it for his own reasons. Maybe it's the Rambo movies, maybe it's Sylvester Stallone, Rocky, whatever compels him."

More likely, it was Tillman's love for America, not to mention his brother, who also enlisted. In the aftermath of the interview, Rice's remarks were seen as symptomatic of today's privileged, self-centered professional athletes who have been enabled from their earliest playing days.

"A professional athlete's career is self-indulgent almost by definition," said Alan Klein, professor of sociology and anthropology at Northeastern University. "Risking your career and your life is not an easy decision. They're content to wear a patch on the uniform for solidarity, but that's the easy way out. Really, we're all taking the easy way out.

"My parents were in [Nazi concentration camp] Auschwitz. All my life, I've heard about the acts of bravery and sacrifice. We would all like to think of ourselves as people who would do the right thing. But, deep down, how many of us would give up everything we have? Certainly, it's not a lock."

From Michael Moore -- the director of the Oscar-winning documentary "Bowling for Columbine" who admonished the president ("Shame on you, Mr. Bush.") when he accepted his Academy Award -- to Martin Sheen, Susan Sarandon and Janeane Garofalo to the Dixie Chicks and Fred Durst ("I just really hope we all are in agreeance that this war should go away."), Hollywood has been critical of U.S. involvement in Iraq. Why hasn't the elite athletic community -- kindred spirits in the context of entertainment -- produced any notable conscientious objectors along the lines of Muhammad Ali, who faced a five-year prison sentence for refusing to enlist?

Klein, whose book on globalization and baseball, "Growing the Game," will be published in 2004, said the two cultures are, generally speaking, at opposite ends of the spectrum.

"Once you get past that thin veneer of deviant -- by that I mean guys like Dennis Rodman, Bill Walton and Bill Lee -- athletics has a rock-solid core of conservatism," Klein said. "The institution weeds out so-called deviants, people that don't fit mainstream views. In sports, there are a rule-bound set of behaviors. With coaching, it's very autocratic. In sports, you have an institution that socializes above and beyond what any church or family does."

King Kaufman, writing last month for Salon.com, pointed out that Toni Smith, a Division III women's basketball player who refused to face the flag during the national anthem, made the grandest anti-war statement in all of sports.

"The shocking thing," Kaufman wrote, "the real story here, is that an athlete, somewhere in America, has spoken out about politics, however innocuously. Athletes don't talk about things like this, even way down at Division III."

Dallas Mavericks guard Steve Nash wore a T-shirt with the slogan "No War, Shoot for Peace" at the NBA All-Star Game, but he is one of the few who have dared speak out. Ultimately, it's not really surprising, Klein said, that athletes aren't criticizing the war -- or running off to join it, either.

"Every impulse says to be self-centered and take care of yourself," Klein said. "Because they've always been taken care of. Their lives are good. Why throw it all away?"